Japandroids / Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band
The Horseshoe Tavern. Saturday, September 19, 2009.
Leaving the Music Gallery and the Woodchoppers gig, took the walk over to the 'Shoe at a brisk pace. Sadly, I'd missed Brides who were first up on the bill,1 but it looked like I'd be able to get there just in time to see Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band.
In fact, I made my way in and walked up to the stage with moments to spare before the five-piece from Seattle took the stage. Had zero knowledge of the band going on, so I was able to take it with a blank slate. Shades of Modest Mouse, inasmuch as the band featured sorta yelpy vox and a sorta spastic take on guitar rock. Two guits, occasional chirruping keyb, extra drums brought up to the front of the stage for extra percussion, and Traci Eggleston's backing vox. Towards the end of the set, Eggleston employed a pair of cymbals taped to the end of two broom -handle-like sticks for floor-banging rattlin'. Nothing at all wrong with what they were doing, but it didn't grab me all that much, not even the last song, which dared to ask that burning musical question: "What's in his souvlaki?" They were entertaining in their presentation, otherwise, no long-lasting impression.
"In case you didn't know, it's fuckin' on tonight," guitarist Brian King announced, wind blowing his hair, as Japandroids took the stage. Leading from a position of strength, the Vancouver duo launched straight into the dance frenzy of "Heart Sweats", which segued into a low-slung run through "Darkness on the Edge of Gastown". Two thirds of the way through the crowd started to applaud, and Brian said, "Hold it! We haven't done anything to deserve applause yet!" as they leaned into the ending of the song.
It turned out we got the extended Saturday Night set, with the band pulling out some songs that were outside their regular setlist, including a new (?) song — another one with pick-it-up-quickly lyrics: "Here's your body back / here's your punk rock back" — and also "Couture Suicide" from the group's first EP. The pair were clearly having a ball, and ingratiating themselves with the crowd with that age-old trick of denegrating the other cities they're playing: "They're sure not getting that fucking song in Columbus!" Not that such ego-stroking was required, as the crowd was pretty rabidly into it.
And then "Young Hearts Spark Fire", the hit, was like gasoline on flames, giving a whole whack of dudes a prime opportunity to push their way up to the stage, scream along and generally push people around. Suddenly there were bodies bouncing off me; I moved back some. After a ripping cover of Big Black's "Racer X" with Dave on vox, the band played "Crazy/Forever" for the women in room, inviting any who wanted to to come up stage to dance "without getting a fucking elbow in your face", leading to a suddenly full stage. That careened into the stellar "Sovereignty", probably the high point of the set. Definitely much more than I was expecting, the band played seventy minutes before encoring with "I Quit Girls".
A pretty good show. The band have a winning attitude, a democratic "fuck yeah" aimed back at every drunked-up partier raising a beer to them, tempered with an aw-shucks vulnerability where they seem moved by the crowd's support, impressed that people are paying and shouting for songs that they would be playing to each other in a room anyway.2
Listen to a track from this set here.
1 Though I did spot them, sprawled out en masse in one of the Queen St. doorways beside the 'Shoe, supine in the post-gig comedown.
2 There's also some signs of some rigorous aesthetic smarts somewhere in their camp, with a snappy and varied assortment of t-shirts on offer at the merch table.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment